Functional neuroimaging studies of episodic recognition memory consistently demonstrate retrieval-associated activation in right prefrontal regions, including right anterior and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortices. These activations may reflect processes associated with retrieval success, retrieval effort, or retrieval attempt, with each hypothesis receiving some support from prior studies. In Experiment 1, we examined these functional interpretations using fMRI to measure prefrontal activation across multiple levels of recognition performance. Results revealed a similar pattern of right prefrontal activation across varying levels of retrieval success and retrieval effort suggesting that these activations reflect retrieval attempt. In Experiment 2, we examined whether engagement of retrieval attempt is context-dependent by varying retrieval context via a test instructions manipulation. Results revealed a different pattern of right prefrontal activation across retrieval contexts. Collectively, these experiments suggest that right prefrontal regions mediate processes associated with retrieval attempt, with the probability of engaging these regions depending upon the retrieval context. Conflicting results across prior studies may be reconciled if the influence of retrieval context on the adopted retrieval strategy is considered. Finally, these results suggest that right prefrontal regions visualized during recognition are not critical for performance as similar magnitudes of activation were present across multiple levels of performance. These findings reconcile imaging results with the selective effects of prefrontal lesions on retrieval-intensive episodic memory tests.